Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,16

something, at least.”

“I guess.” I blow a breath out. “I’m sorry. I’m just—yeah.” I spin around on the carpet, lying back on the floor. “Do you think I should tell somebody?” I ask the ceiling.

“You just told me.”

“No, like, DioGuardi or someone? I mean, I didn’t even tell my parents.”

“What,” Chloe asks, “to, like, try to get him in trouble?”

“I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble,” I say, popping up on my elbows.

“No, of course not,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean that how it came out. I guess I just . . . obviously I believe you about what happened, but are you sure he didn’t just, like . . . get confused by your vibe, or whatever?”

I startle. “My vibe?”

“You know what I mean!” Chloe defends herself. “Or maybe you were confused? I’m definitely not saying you were, I’m just trying to figure out—”

“I’m not confused.” Ugh, this isn’t going how I thought it would at all. I take a deep breath, try to regroup. “It was weird behavior, right? Objectively, for a teacher? It was inappropriate.”

“Yes, of course. One hundred percent,” Chloe says, even as she’s shrugging noncommittally. “But it also sounds a little like maybe you’re freaking out a disproportionate amount? I wasn’t there, obviously, but, how many times have we talked about how hot he is, or whatever? Maybe he was just picking up what you were putting down, or trying to make it not weird, or—”

“Seriously?” I interrupt. “How does kissing me make it less weird?”

“I don’t know!” she says. “I’m just trying to make sense of it, that’s all. And if you feel like you need to, like, go to the authorities or whatever, then I’m not going to tell you not to.”

“But you wouldn’t,” I say, flopping back onto the carpet.

“I mean, no,” Chloe says quietly. “I wouldn’t try to ruin somebody’s whole life over something I wasn’t even sure I interpreted correctly.”

“I’m not out to ruin anyone’s life!”

“Of course not,” Chloe says. “But that’s what would happen, right?” She shrugs again. “You tell DioGuardi, and they fire him or whatever, and then he can’t get another job because he’s got this thing on his record that maybe wasn’t even . . .” She trails off, reaching out and balancing a tortilla chip on my knee. “I don’t know. It’s Bex, Marin. He’s literally your favorite teacher.”

And mine, I can hear her adding in her mind. And everyone’s.

“It’s not like we have a totally normal relationship with him anyway,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say, closing my eyes for a moment. I don’t know why all of a sudden I feel like I might be about to cry. “I guess you’re right.”

For a long time neither one of us says anything. Finally Chloe rolls up the bag of chips. “I’ve gotta go,” she says, reaching for the plastic clip on my nightstand. “I told my mom I’d have the car back by eleven.”

She gets to her feet before offering a hand to help me up, the two of us heading downstairs and past my parents watching an old Tom Hanks movie in the living room. “Have a good night, Mr. and Mrs. Lospato!” she calls brightly, pulling her jacket off the overloaded hook in the foyer before turning to me one more time.

“He really did all that stuff?” she asks now, and her voice is very quiet.

“Yeah,” I say, still swallowing down that crying feeling one more time. God, how could I have been so stupid? “He did.”

Chloe nods, and for a moment it looks like she’s going to say something else, but in the end she just reaches out and unlocks the deadbolt, icy December air slicing into the house. “I’ll see you Monday,” she promises, and just like that she’s gone.

Eight

I spend the rest of the weekend helping my parents get the Christmas decorations out of the attic and watching Home Alone on cable, trying with extremely limited success not to think about what happened. By the time third period rolls around on Monday morning, I’m a nervous wreck. For a minute I honestly consider skipping English altogether, but that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? What am I going to do, just cut every day for the rest of the year?

Bex isn’t in his classroom as we’re filing in, and for a moment I wonder—with a mixture of hope and deep, horrifying dread—if maybe he isn’t even here today. Did somebody find out what happened between us? Did Chloe turn around and tell?